


the longest time

by iovewords



Series: Spideychelle Music Shuffle [2]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fancy Italian restaurants, Featuring another Spider-Man character...guess who!, Spideychelle date night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26471710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iovewords/pseuds/iovewords
Summary: I don’t care what consequence it bringsI have been a fool for lesser thingsI want you so badI think you ought to knowThat I intend to hold you for the longest timeOr: Peter takes MJ out to a fancy restaurant and it obviously goes exactly according to plan.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: Spideychelle Music Shuffle [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928152
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29
Collections: The Spideychelle Shuffle





	the longest time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jsscshvlr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jsscshvlr/gifts).



> For the Spideychelle Shuffle Game: The Longest Time by Billy Joel

Peter bursts through the restaurant’s front doors and skids to a halt in front of the host stand. Breathlessly, he runs a hand through his hair, trying to smooth it back to the nice gelled look he’d spent 15 minutes on in front of his bathroom mirror. It’s a mess. He’s a mess. The host looks him up and down disapprovingly and he tries not to blush. His dress shirt and jacket are rumpled and he probably missed a button or two. His left shoe and bottom of his pant leg are soaked from a puddle he stepped in as he hurriedly changed out of his suit.

Seven years he’s been doing this and he’s still changing in dirty alleyways, surrounded by dumpsters. It’s so undignified.

“My- my girlfriend has a reservation. Under Jones. Michelle Jones. She should be here already.” 

He wonders for a moment if he’ll be turned away. Technically he meets the dress code, but maybe they have a rule about passing a certain level of tidiness. 

Then the host says, “Right this way, sir.” 

The “sir” definitely sounded sarcastic. 

Peter follows the host past immaculate older couples who probably go to restaurants like this several nights a week. White tablecloths. Candles. Chandeliers. Gentle classical music. He feels stupidly out of his depth and thinks not for the first time that he should have chosen a different location. 

No. This is for MJ. He knows she doesn’t care how fancy it is as long as the food is good. But MJ deserves a nice night out. She deserves the best.

And there she is.

She beams at the sight of him and stands up, looking an absolute vision in a strapless black dress and ruby red lipstick. The black dahlia around her neck glitters in the candlelight.

“Hey,” she says warmly as he approaches the table, leaning over to give him a peck on the lips.

“Sorry I’m late,” Peter says as they settle into their seats. “I got held up at work.”

“Which one?” she asks with a knowing glint in her eye.

“Second one. Client had serious anger issues.”

“I’ll bet.”

They order a bottle of white wine for the table, rather than single glasses. Peter glances at the price once and then purposely ignores it, reminding himself that he saved up for this. For her.

As they wait for their server to arrive to take their orders for the antipasti, MJ fills Peter in on her day at the criminal justice nonprofit she’s interning at. The work is equal parts frustrating and exciting, and every time she talks about it she becomes animated about the issue she’s been passionate about since she was a teenager. She’s got a month and a half left and there’s a possibility they’ll hire her full time after it ends.

“You’ll definitely get it,” Peter tells her. “You’re brilliant.”

“Thanks, dork. I really hope so.”

Peter finds himself relaxing. He’s so enraptured in talking to her that he forgets how uncomfortable he felt walking in here. 

The conversation drifts to a new comedy special that just dropped on Netflix. 

“Have you heard of him?” Peter asks.

“No. But we should check it out anyway.” 

“And make fun of it if it’s not funny.”

“Naturally.”

Peter is about to open his mouth to tell a joke of his own he thought of today (he always comes up with his best ones when he’s swinging, and Karen helpfully records them for him), when a shiver goes up his spine.

Spidey sense.

Barely a second later a loud choking sound erupts behind him and he whirls around in his chair to see a woman across the room clutching her throat, face turning red. Around her, her family is starting to shout in alarm.

Peter instinctively leaps into action, standing up so suddenly that his knee smashes into the table. It shakes so violently that his and MJ’s glasses topple over, and his chair falls as well for good measure. 

He barrels across the room in seconds, accidentally sideswiping a waiter carrying an enormous platter of food and sending him crashing to the floor with the dishes, which shatter and add to the cacophony of noise.

But despite his enhanced speed, he’s not the first one there. Someone, a woman with shimmery silver hair, has beaten him to rushing to the choking woman’s aid. For the second time tonight he stumbles to a halt, and watches as she methodically wraps her arms around the other woman’s stomach to give the heimlich maneuver.

A piece of half chewed meat shoots out of the woman’s mouth and lands on the table, and she sags in relief in her rescuer’s arms.

The room erupts in applause.

“Oh my god,” the husband says, his eyes wide, still in shock. “Oh my god, thank you.” He pulls his wife into his side and wraps an arm around her. She looks at the silver-haired woman as she’s catching her breath, eyes streaming, and gives her a wobbly smile. 

Meanwhile, Peter stands there uselessly.

“What is going on in here?” an important looking man in a suit who’s probably the manager strides into the room and gawks at the chaotic scene before him.

Peter then takes notice of the poor waiter who’s still sprawled on the ground, plates and dishes smashed to pieces around him and sauce and pasta splattered all over the carpet and all over him. The waiter groans pitifully, and Peter freezes, horrified at the thought that he might have injured him. He was so focused on getting to one person in danger that another was caught in the crossfire. And he didn’t even do anything to help, so it was all for nothing.

“I am SO sorry!” Peter darts forward and helps the waiter to his feet. “Are you okay?” The waiter nods and Peter breathes a sigh of relief.

“WHAT happened?” the manager demands again.

The husband speaks up. “My wife- she was choking. This young woman saved her.”

People murmur in agreement and start lightly clapping again. The silver haired woman humbly shrugs, but through the veil of hair that hangs in her face, Peter thinks he sees her wink at him.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” the manager asks the wife.

She puts a hand to her chest. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Good, good. But what about this? Why did this happen?” 

Peter’s face grows hot as the manager narrows his eyes at the mess on the floor and everyone looks at him. He’s never felt more exposed and incompetent, polar opposite from his heroic alter-ego than he does in this moment. At least when he screws up as Spider-Man, no one can see his face beneath the mask.

He stumbles over his words rushing out an explanation. “Uh, I was- I was running over to help and I. Um. Crashed into the waiter.” He pauses. “Sorry,” he says guiltily to the waiter again, who’s looking at the destruction with a mixture of devastation and disbelief.

The manager closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. In the moment he reminds Peter a bit of Jameson, and he wonders if the man is going to start shouting. Then he snaps his fingers at the waiter. “Get the bussers. Clean this up. Clean yourself up. Marianne will cover this room for the time being.” 

He then moves towards the table whose dinner was ruined to smooth things over with them. Peter takes a step forward.

“Sir? Is there anything I can do?”

The manager regards him coldly. “No, I think you’ve done enough.”

Peter hangs his head and slinks back to his table, feeling the stares of others drilling holes into his back. MJ is waiting, biting her lip and she looks at him sympathetically.

“You were just trying to help,” she reassures him as he turns his chair upright and sinks into it. “It was an accident.”

“Doesn’t matter. I fucked up.”

MJ creases her eyebrows like she’s considering something, then seems to make up her mind. She pushes her chair back and stands up, grabbing her purse.

“Let’s go.”

Peter blinks slowly. “What?”

“Let’s go. This place is too stuffy.”

“MJ, we don’t have to- just because I screwed up-”

“I’ve been wanting to leave anyway,” she confesses. “It’s way too uptight. And have you seen the portion sizes? They’re fucking tiny and I’m starving. C’mon, let’s go get some real food.”

Peter smiles weakly. “Well, if you insist.” He digs out his wallet and pulls out every bill he has. With his frequent need for buying late night snacks while on patrol, he’s in the habit of using cash in all parts of his life. All of this money he withdrew this morning was supposed to be for his and MJ’s special dinner date, but instead it’s going to cover someone else’s. 

He glances over at the table whose food was ruined and counts five people (and several pairs of eyes still shooting daggers at him). It’s not nearly enough.

MJ notices his line of vision and catches on, murmuring to him, “Stark can cover the rest. Rich people are useful for fixing this sort of thing.”

Peter nods mutely and fires off a text to Happy who responds he’ll take care of it. 

They’re outside when Peter notices that MJ is carrying the bottle of wine.

“You took it?” 

“Hey, we paid for it. Or rather, your pal Iron Man will. If you recall, you knocked over our glasses before I got to finish mine.”

He cringes. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Hence why I’ve taken the rest of it.”

They end up in a cheap pizza place and split a large pepperoni, wolfing down their slices from greasy paper plates and taking turns drinking straight from the bottle.

The place is mostly empty except for a few other diners and the burly tattooed guy wiping down the counter. The radio is playing something light and jazzy on piano and Peter finds himself bobbing his head.

“This was a good choice,” MJ says after taking a swig from the bottle. “No snobby rich people, great pizza, and five star wine.”

“And a five star girl,” Peter adds grinning at her.

She arches an eyebrow. “Are you rating me, Parker?”

“No! Of course not. I just-”

She reaches across the table and gently raps her knuckles against his forehead. “Messing with you, dummy. Would think you’d know better by now.”

“Yeah, but you still manage to surprise me. And I mean it. You look amazing. You are amazing.”

She ducks her head, grinning. “Shut up.”

Peter’s eyes drift to the broken black flower around her neck and memories of their teenage European vacation return to him, of his big plan to give it to her on the Eiffel Tower and the reality of meeting her on the bridge in London surrounded by overturned burning cars and debris.

“I always manage to screw up my big romantic plans for you, huh,” he chuckles darkly.

MJ frowns at the bitterness in his tone and looks down at her necklace, then rubs her thumb over the spot with the missing petals. “I mean… not always? You do seem to have a weird bad luck streak though.”

“Oh yeah, I’m aware...Anyway, I’m sorry our dinner plans didn’t turn out like we hoped. This is some damn good pizza but it’s not the same as a full course meal.”

MJ leans back in her chair, shrugging. “Well, I won’t pretend I’m not completely unbothered. I was looking forward to the tiramisu. But like I said, that restaurant in particular was a bit… much. Which isn’t to say I don’t like fine dining. Getting dressed up for this was really fun.” She pauses, her eyes falling to his forearms, where he’s rolled his shirtsleeves up his elbows (his jacket is slung lazily over the back of his chair in a way that would have May telling him off if she were here). “For both of us,” she adds, smirking.

“I’m glad,” Peter says. “And as for your tiramisu craving, I think we passed an Italian bakery on our way here. Wanna head over there after this?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

**Author's Note:**

> @iovewords on tumblr


End file.
